A Child's Plight
by Blue Moon One
Summary: Short Summary: Cipher's a girl, child soldier, and Bristow's her dad, Bristow tells Pixy to find her, and keep her ass at Valais but Cipher doesn't listen because she's left in the dark about a lot of shit. OH SHE DOESN'T KNOW BRISTOW'S HER DAD EITHER. Seriously the story doesn't sound as stupid as this summary it's just too long.


**Summary: During the Belkan War, there had been catastrophe everywhere, citizens left displaced, yet hope soon rose with the rise of a legendary mercenary code named Demon Lord, but was this Demon truly a lord? Or were they a young queen, forced into the middle of a war with her deceased mercenary father's wealth, his F-15 Eagle, outcast from her family with the fate of the war soon resting on her shoulders. But not is all as it seems, and Cipher learns many things, and that her father may have never been dead, or a mercenary at all. **

**ACE COMBAT ZERO THE BELKAN WAR**

**A Child's Plight**

**An Ace Combat Zero Alternate Universe**

**The Study of Electrons/Neutrons/Protons and the Human Brain**

The ability to manipulate one's electrical field through the brain is unstudied, and a phenomena that is seemingly rare and only common in those who have a rare gene in which makes their brain mimic that of an eel's electrical organ, but can expand to become much more powerful to the point it could kill the user. The user has the ability to manipulate their electrical field, and condense it's particles enough to use it as an extra limb, these actions cannot be seen with the naked eye, but have been witnessed many times with military and scientists alike. These people, known as "Sparkers", can also replenish their electrical field simutaniously as well as using their abilities. Sparkers can be affected greatly by magnetic poles, and other electrical interfearances(or nuclear radiation). If they use their abilities to maximum for longer than two hours(adult) or thirty minutes(child) they could suffer severe amounts of brain damage.

The Supercharged Phenomena has only been observed once in Lieutenant Colonel Gunther, a former Osean fighter pilot who had used his abilities to help an entire Osean fleet of fighters fight off Belkan forces, five days later he had died from unknown causes. Cipher possibly carries the same gene, and could quite possibly be capable of catastrophic damage.

Known Users: Astrid "Cipher" Gunther, LT COL. Gunther call sign Nix

PROLOGUE

The room is silent minus the tension between the two females in the room, one only thirteen and the other early thirties. The young girl there is waiting for her mother to be busy with something else other than yelling and scolding. Soon, the girl is allowed to be alone in her room, barren, but still fit for sleep and the basics such as homework or a place to hide.

She's standing there, in the middle of her room and knows that she will be roughly scolded again, she feels it deep in her chest like she was dropping from the sky in infinite. She quickly moves towards her bed side drawer, where her father had given her a pistol when the time came because he knew he could never take her out on combat missions with himself. He knew there wasn't much he could do to rescue her. The girl is familiar with the make of the pistol, and slides the slide on the top back with a satisifying click, and looks back at her door to see her mother stands there. Her mother scoffs at her and holds her hand out.

"Give me the gun," Her mother says in a voice that sounds to her like slithering snakes.

"Fuck you," The girl spits, and aims it at her. "That's what dad would have said right now."

"Well isn't it good he's dead?" Her mother asks, continuing the taunting voice.

"Doesn't mean that I will listen to you," The girl spits.

"You're such a manipulative child," Her mother says.

"No, I'm a cipher that you will never break," The girl grinns, slipping her slim finger through the trigger guard and tries to mentally prepare herself for the loud bang that would soon echo through the residence.

She fires, first into her mother's leg, to which she screams and for a moment the girl feels bad, she feels terrible, she knows that it will be there for a long time but a part of her also thirsts for escape. The girl fires again and escapes through the window to the top of the house, running over the shingles with her almost bare feet. It hurts, but she ignores the pain, and the sense of freedom is overwhelming to the girl. She climbs down the sides of the house having memorized her way to the military base nearby, where her father's aircraft had been left to crode overtime.

She looks back, to see she's not being followed, either her mother had decided to lie down and die, or she was getting the cops, either way, the girl had to go quickly, stay in the shadows. With all of her father's wealth hidden in a personal bank account that only she could access, it would be easy to change her appearance. She thought of it, changing her hair to red, but she couldn't change much for her eyes. Maybe contacts, but those are too expensive. She wants to take after her father in terms of a nickname. He was known as Nix.

She takes the spare time she has, buying the little things such as food, shoes-claims that her's had literally fallen apart so no one had supicions raised-although the soon to be fighter pilot was smarter than that. People would get suspicious. A few men eyed her down before she flashed her father's mercenary emblem on the jacket that stated on the right breast pocket LT. COL Gunther. The men back off, and leave her alone as she travels through the darkness in the night of the city, neon lights almost everywhere, and the city smells of exhaust fumes that make her want to gag.

Either way, the girl's gotten far from home now, closer to the military base on the outskirts of Oured. She hopes that she can fit into the flight gear there, unless the aircraft was destroyed and she truly was screwed. Another thing she hopes, her father's cousin is there. Joshua "Lucan" Bristow, a nice enough man who hates her whole mother's existence and bitterness towards her father and daughter who wants to follow in his footsteps. They didn't look much alike, maybe similarities in interests in folklore and reading. During Halloween when she was young both had dressed up as knights, sometimes the girl had been an Elf or Druid.

Those were the days that the girl had missed.

She's gotten closer to the AFB, she can just hear the engines growling. The girl's running towards the base, there's not much she can use to hide. She looks around, hoping to find an area where she could camouflage herself. She can't find anything, so she walks through the gates where nobody appears to be stationed nearby.

Osea was always lack on the rules of the base, so there was no such thing really as Military Police, if anything those were the officers. Like her cousin, Bristow. Although if anything he was more quiet and layed back, likes to watch things from a distance.

Gunther had gotten through the gated section, watching a few planes take off from the runway, her cousin's squadron with the F-16XL. A few YF-23 fighters had joined them soon after, and she is mesmerized for a short while before moving to sneak into the hangar where her father's Eagle was placed in.

Gunther finds the aircraft, a beautiful F15C with no markings resembling an affiliation, not even a flashy livery to signify it's belonging to a high tier mercenary. No references to their heritage, Belkan, and she's happy about that. Those were the people who had murdered her father just for being a mercenary, at least that's what she'd been told. Gunther is unsure of how much she believes of it, but considering the state of Belka now, and the instability of the governing forces she truly wasn't surprised if they started killing their own citizens.

She looks around the dark hangar, using a flashlight she'd bought to light the place up and feels the familiar prickle around her, the F-15 was responsive, not salvaged for parts. She reaches out to caress the auxillary fuel tanks, a gesture that made the sharp prickle ease up a bit.

"I'm gonna take you for a long adventure," She smiles.

The smile is a hostile one, but one of promise. She hears a door open and quickly unholsters the pistol in her jacket, aiming it at the door. Bristow's there, arms crossed as Gunther slowly lowers the weapon.

"Your mother called, said you tried to kill her?" He asked, amused. "Good couple shots, although I personally would've gone for the head."

"Wanted her alive," Gunther says.

"They don't think she'll live, but if she does, that's not your problem," Bristow says. "Now come back with me."

"I thought you went flying," Gunther says.

"No, I can't," Bristow says.

She cocks her head a little, a habit she has for when she's thinking, then nods but pivots on her heel to look back at the jet. She doesn't want to leave it, not when the possibility of it being trashed and used for spare parts still remains. She can hear the sounds of his footsteps coming closer and closer, and Gunther turns around with the pistol raised.

"How do I know you won't turn me over?" She asks.

"Do I really seem like that?" Bristow says.

"You could be," She says.

"Well if I may remind you I'm the person who took you when she had the audacity to give you that damn concussion and try to fight for the rights to keep you here," Bristow reminds. "You're just a kid, Astrid you won't be pulling stunts your father pulled!"

"He was a damn fighter pilot he knew what he was doing!" Astrid shouts. "And dad taught me how to fly that jet!"

"I am a lieutenant of the Osean air defence force and that is something I cannot allow you to do," Bristow says, sternly but that agrivates her more.

"And I don't care I'm the daughter of a mercenary!" She shouts again.

"Astrid, we need to leave, and it's late, you need to sleep," Bristow says. "And no sneaking out, you'll be on base with me tomorrow you hear kid?"

He's acting stern, and Astrid's never seen that before.

"Yes," She says.

She follows him, more because she's curious than obedient. And when they arrive at the his place, she's bombarded with a stabbing feeling in her whole body. She stops in the doorway, shocked before she regains control of herself and Bristow realizes this.

"A lot like your dad kid," He ruffles her hair.

Astrid cocks her head again, and nods slowly, takes off the boots she'd gotten, and follows him through the house. She takes a good look at a lot of the tech around, then tugs on his arm.

"Something's wrong with the TV," She blurts.

"I know," Bristow says.

"And the lights down the hallway,"

"You need to go sleep, you'll be fine without light for a little while," He says.

"The clock gives off enough light," Astrid replies. "Blue light."

"Not healthy for the eyes," Bristow says.

"No really, it has a weird blue glow around it, you don't see that?" She asks.

Bristow shakes his head, giving her enough of an answer so she says her goodnight, and retreats into the spare bedroom there. She closes the door, and locks it, looking back at the clock. It's a more modernized one yeah, but there's this constantly blue glow around it, sky blue and it rotates around it like rings. When she touches the glow her fingers tingle, a lot, and suddenly electricity around her will go haywire.

She's sure it may just be her child imagination, but there's something eerie about it, especially how the last time she'd seen it, when her father walked into the room he rose his hand the slightest and it stopped. She's still curious, did all of that really happen?

Astrid's sitting on the bed, looking up at the window that's behind it at the stars that litter the nightsky like glitter on a velvet black blanket. She's curious about those too. Sometimes, her father's referred to her as "Star Child", a child who doesn't belong on the Earth. A child who is smarter than average, one that could quite possibly bring peace, disaster, or even both. She felt like that applied to her.

Astrid looks back at the door, straining her ears to listen for any sound, and there's her cousin talking to someone. She tries to listen, but she can barely understand a word they say. She can't understand them very well at all, actually. Her understanding of Belkan is terrible.

She can understand only "no, she needs to stay". Astrid looks around the window, trying to find an area of escape. Astrid locks her fingers in the window's screen, and tries to tear it open. She suceeds, smiling and looks back at her door, and climbs out as she sees the shadow of her cousin.

Astrid hangs by the window as she hears him talking, and then talking fast at the realization that Astrid had left. She drops down when he's left, and starts running for the base. It was to spite Bristow yes, mostly to spite everyone at this point-Astrid hadn't given two fucks about how she was about to escape out into war.


End file.
